An infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Today, this is THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE!
THE PLIMSOULS: A Million Miles Away
THE PLIMSOULS: A Million Miles Away
Written by Peter Case, Joey Alkes, and Chris Fradkin
Produced by Jeff Eyrich
Single, Shaky City, 1982
Sometimes distance is the problem. Sometimes distance can seem like salvation. If our troubles are here, in too-damned-close proximity, we may wish we could be a million miles away.
The Plimsouls came with a power-pop pedigree. The pedigree began with the Nerves, an L.A.-based trio who released a four-song EP in 1977 before vanishing. The EP was engaging enough, but the Nerves are best remembered for what its members went on to accomplish. Guitarist Jack Lee never made much of a name for himself as a performer, but he did have some success as a songwriter; Blondie had a # 5 British hit with his “Hanging On The Telephone” (the original version of which appeared on the Nerves’ EP). Both “Hanging On The Telephone” and another Lee composition, “Will Anything Happen,” were included on Blondie’s mega-successful Parallel Lines album, and other Lee-written songs were recorded by Suzi Quatro, Paul Young, and the Rubber City Rebels.
Ah, but the other two ex-Nerves--drummer Paul Collins and bassist Peter Case--subsequently achieved power pop immortality after trading in their original instrumental roles for rhythm guitar/frontman spots with their own respective groups, the Beat and the Plimsouls.
The Beat, later renamed the Paul Collins Beat to avoid confusion with the British act of the same name (that's the English Beat to us Yanks), were a solid pop act from the word go, and Collins is rightly considered among power pop's finest. (And the Paul Collins song "Walking Out On Love" earns a chapter in The Greatest Record Ever Made! [Volume 1]).
To many fans, the Plimsouls remain the definitive post-punk power pop group. Following the dissolution of the Nerves, Case had originally hung together with Collins in a group called the Breakaways. By 1979, Case had joined forces with bassist Dave Pahoa, drummer Lou Ramirez and (eventually) guitarist Eddie Muñoz to form the Plimsouls. In 1980, the group made its recording debut with Zero Hour, a five-song EP released on the independent Beat label. Zero Hour helped the group snare the interest of Elektra’s Planet Records subsidiary. Planet released the group’s debut album, The Plimsouls, in 1981.
The Plimsouls was an extraordinary effort. But, in spite of irresistible tracks like “Now,” “Zero Hour,” “Hush, Hush” and covers of the Easybeats (“Woman”) and Wilson Pickett (“Mini-Skirt Minnie”), the album stalled at # 153, and the “Now” single didn’t chart at all. Planet and the Plimsouls soon parted company.
Without a label, the Plimsouls self-released their next single in 1982, and guaranteed the group’s place in power pop history. “A Million Miles Away” was simply one of the greatest power pop singles ever, a succinct blast of chip-on-the-shoulder attitude, fist-in-the-air rocking and swooning, swooping heart-on-the-sleeve hooks.
The buzz surrounding “A Million Miles Away” landed the Plimsouls a contract with Geffen, leading to 1983’s Everywhere At Once album. Geffen reissued the “A Million Miles Away” single (which peaked at # 82), but the album never got past # 186. The group appeared in the popular film Valley Girl, lip-syncing to “A Million Miles Away,” “Everywhere At Once” and “Oldest Story In The World.” This was as close as the Plimsouls ever got to the mass popular recognition that should have been theirs. Peter Case moved on to a career as a troubadour. Once again, power pop had skipped the "popular" part.
But those two Plimsouls albums, plus the group's underrated, overlooked nineties reunion album Kool Trash? The Plimsouls left a legacy, a magnificent legacy. These records should be considered a prerequisite purchase for anyone claiming an interest in this broad category iof pop with power.
And "A Million Miles Away" absolutely is one of power pop's defining tracks.
What is it that makes "A Million Miles Away" so unforgettable, so immense, so over-the-top right? There's a feeling of pressure pervading the track, like a soul compressed under the weight of a million broken hearts, the sting of a million broken promises, the spark of a million ideas, everywhere at once, on how to get the hell outta here if that's our best option, or to stand and fight if it that's the better choice. We're damned either way. We may as well go down swingin'. In my ears and in my gut, "A Million Miles Way" channels a flight away from the precipice, even as it leaps so blithely into the unknown. A million miles to cover before dawn? Well! Best be on our way then. Cheers, Luv!
It seems a solo flight. In the end, as much as we wish to share our fortunes with lovers and friends we still can recall, we will at some point walk, run, jump, crawl, and eventually stop in some measure of insistent solitude, whether by intention or just by the cookie's errant method of crumbling.
A million miles away. It fits the times, doesn't it?
Regret or desperation? Are we a million miles away from our goal, or have we finally reached the treasure of an X-marked destination that had been so impossibly distant? When even our sense of everywhere at once brings a curse of bleakness, light itself appears--IS--a million miles away.
But we'll get to it. It will shine again. We have a song for the journey. And there's nothing left to bring us back. Drifting to a different place. Falling off the edge of one world might mean a chance to build another. One mile down. Less than a million to go.
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